A Dawn of Burning Skies - A Novel (1-3)
As we travelled, I noticed by the position of the sun that we were travelling in a south-easterly direction, away from town towards the mountains. It was roughly two hours later that we came to a stop at a police roadblock. I saw a long line of cars on the other side of the roadblock and then realized that we had seen no cars in the oncoming traffic. We all pressed our faces against the windows to see what was happening. A policeman walked up to the driver's window and checked the driver's license. He briefly glanced at us in the bus. Satisfied, he waved us through and as we were driving past the last police car we the bus rocked in what felt like a huge earthquake.
This sudden shaking was shortly followed by an explosion eclipsing all the thunderstorms I had ever heard. My hearing was temporarily gone with a nagging high-pitched ringing taking its place.
We heard shouts and saw people pointing down the road behind us. Turning in our seats, Adrienne and I accidentally knocked our heads together in our rush. Dazed from the knock, but still curious, I managed to look out the back window. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, not believing my eyes. A giant mushroom was forming in the distance. And it was huge.
"Tell me that I'm dreaming," I said to no one in particular. "This stuff only happens in movies. It... it can't be real."
I felt someone place their hand on my shoulder, and I heard the driver's voice next to my ear.
"Well, sonny, now ya know."
I sat back down, bewildered, my legs suddenly feeling weak. Turning to Adrienne I saw her hunched over with her head in her hands. I comfortingly put my hand on her shoulder. Without looking at me, she quietly spoke: "That was a bomb, wasn't it? But it... it must have exploded near our town... it is in that direction. What about my parents? My brother? My friends? Did they get away in time? I can't even bear to think about it... Humphrey, I'm scared."
"It's going to be alright," I said, having to keep my voice strong as I realized the gravity of the situation. "They'll have been evacuated, just like us. They're safe."
We sat for there a few minutes in silence, then Adrienne simply rested her head on my shoulder. I put my hand on her head and gently stroked her hair.
I looked up to see the driver still staring out the window.
"I hope yer right, son. I hope to God that yer right."
I swallowed hard, knowing that until we saw our families again, we'd be left in uncertainty.
Then I thought, why would anyone want to bomb us? Sure, we were an important country, but we had no real enemies. We were at the forefront of civilization and there hadn’t been a war in half a century.
“That’s an atomic bomb...” I stated with a grimace.
Everybody nodded their agreement.
“Hey, my phone doesn’t want to turn on!” one of the other children on the bus shouted. She’s frantically been trying to call her parents.
“Mine too,” shouted another.
I took mine out and found a similar result. It was just dead, as if its battery had drained. But mine had been fully charged when we left. Now we couldn’t call our families to see if they were okay.
"So, where are we going now?" I asked the driver, trying to get our minds off of everything that was going wrong.
He pointed out the front window.
"Those there mountains. Protection from radiation they said. I think they know what they're talkin' about."
Then it hit me. Radiation was coming. The worst part of the bomb.
But how did they know that the bomb was coming in the first place? Why was it launched at us? Many of questions flooded my mind, but they remained unanswered.
I bring my mind back into the present from the flashback, and I hear Blake's bed creak as he gets up to my left. We nodded a greeting, not wanting to wake the others. He always wakes early to take early morning walks. Blake is a really nice guy, yet much of an introvert. Electronics and engineering is his thing and you could always find him fixing something. No one knows where his parents are. Poor fella.
My mind turns back to those fateful days on the bus.